The very location of the village of Banichan is special.
On the road Bansko – Gotse Delchev – Drama. Which other
has five churches, two mineral springs, two rivers and
such a beautiful women’s folk dress. This is a place
which has concentrated in itself uniqueness and
idiosyncrasy. This is a place which has concentrated in
itself uniqueness and idiosyncrasy.
This is a noble place which can be appreciated by people
with self-confidence and rich emotional life, who
respect themselves, the values of life and the magic of
our natural and cultural heritage.
“If by any incredible chance everything in the world
disappeared and only women’s clothes survived, they
would be enough to restore the art culture of all ages”
– a historian wrote once. We may very well add: If by
any incredible chance everything in Banichan disappears,
it will suffice only the socks from the woman’s dress to
survive and they will be sufficient evidence for the
enormous art culture of the Banichan woman, who has
created one of the most exquisite and wonderfully
beautiful folk clothes. She preserved these
Bulgarian-Slavonic motives so that they can reach us.
There is a wide range of warm colours in
them – from red to yellow, skillfully combined with cold
gradating blue. This gives them harmony and colour
richness equal in its value to great art. In the
hand-knit socks there have been saved one of the oldest
Bulgarian motives. Fresh, lively, exhilarating colours.
A huge treasure of motives which cannot be found
anywhere else. They have taken by the handfuls from the
meadows. The socks with their warm colours look like as
if they belong to boyars or aristocrats.
The women’s natural gift for beauty and
harmony made their skilful hands feel tender for so many
years, intertwining in cauldron after cauldron something
which is relaxation, spiritual need and art. There
certainly was strive for beauty:
-
the yellow is shining
-
the green stripes are blossoming as if they are spring
twigs.
The socks are invaluable gifts on family occasions –
they are part of the engagement ceremony and they are
given by the fiancée to the fiancé, they are part of the
wedding gifts for the father-in law and the mother
–in-law, from the midwife (Baba) to the newly born.
The most preferred ones were the “Kitty’s footsteps” – a
combination of small squares.
With the development of the aesthetic feeling the socks
which were created initially mainly as warm clothing
gradually acquired their own artistic appearance and
started to function simultaneously as clothing and as
decorative ornamentation of the rural home, pub or inn.
The motives which build the decorative ornamentation of
the socks are mainly geometrical – squares, hexagons,
rhombs …
The colour of the socks from Banichan is very rich and
varied. The most often used colours are in a set
traditional range of reds, blues, greens, yellows and
white tones. The soil in the field has red hues. The
never fading beauty is due to a great extent to the
color in which there have been preserved local specific
colour schemes which are more intense, richer and more
idiosyncratic compared to other places. The predominant
colour is red and the most often used colour combination
is blue and yellow, supplemented in harmony with white
and green
As
a result of the creative activity we have been reached
by numerous versions of patterns
which were used: “The blue ones”, “The stars”, “The
kitty footsteps”, “The cherries”, “The Turkish
ones (The oriental ones), “The zaramkite”, “Arnautkite”,
“The three”, “Rahtovete”. For a festive occasion and for
the ordinary day. The peculiarity of the ancient pattern
“Arnautkite” is the use of wool in its natural colors.
This work with natural colours gives special artistic
value which is expressed in the soft hue harmonies.Their
names remind that the female artists had as a model
different aspects of the environment: the plant and
animal world, nature, etc. Even though the ornaments are
interknitted, the ornamented socks are called
embroidered socks.
Independently of sticking to the local style the
creative individual style can be seen in almost all
artistic aspects of the knitting. The individual style
is shown in the performance. In spite of the basic
combinations of the colours the difference is in the
hues. The quality also depends on the material and on
the way it was prepared. The wool must be as meek as a
lamb as if “it has not been touched by hand”.
The
male socks are usually of one colour – white or black,
bordered in the upper part by a line of colourful
ornaments because they are worn over the trousers’ leg.
As we already mentioned the colours combine in a
harmonious chord. With a lot of sense of measure there
are used the blue, white and yellow colour. Normally the
colourful principle is observed – on a dark background
light motives are exposed. The rich colour combination
with predominant red colour gives the socks from
Banichan a certain artistic specificity by underlining
their festive and unique nature.
With their attractive harmony of colours and ornamental
rhythms the socks give special beauty and warmth to the
person who wears them. The Banichan woman uses with
great artistic feeling motives of different colours and
nature and thus creates simple ornamented socks which
have great aesthetic effect.
The socks are knit from thin two-ply woolen thread. The
motives, having different names are performed by means
of old knitting technique with five knitting needles and
they are typical for their red colour. They can have two
functions – useful (for wearing) and aesthetical (for
decorating the old type of interior). The numerous
models of socks and their colours are an inexhaustible
source of ideas for diversification and embellishment of
the contemporary outfit, for souvenirs, greeting cards,
etc.
At a first glance the creativity of the knitter is led
by superstitions. In fact there is deep wisdom in it
with underlying importance of creative labour of the
people and their expectation their labour to be
rewarded. In order to understand this wisdom of the
people there are needed hearts filled with affection to
their roots, to the old times, there is needed knowledge
and eye which can discover the whole beauty is this far
culture. Knitting can tell stories. It provokes the
imagination of the person who sees them with their
merging motives and colours, which render the beauty of
the spring mood. These socks are fine and strongly
influencing creations. In order to reach this
perfection, in front of which we stand in awe, you have
to be gifted with desire for beauty, with will and
humble soul. It is this type of soul which takes in the
beauty coming from nature, refracting it through the
imagination of the knitter, springing from the prism of
talent, inhales a little bit of life and the wool is
reborn, to give warmth and love.
Only
a person who feels life with their heart has the powers
and the blessing to create this beauty – full of life.
In your hands the socks get alive. They do not stop to
whisper to you and embrace you with their softness. They
bring nature and history to your home and they make you
one with the spirit of the forest which carries the
millennial secrets of our ancestors. When watching the
socks you see that every pair is different but at the
same time there is unity of style. This art does not
only embody only thought and labour – it embodies the
soul itself. It is internalization of nature. A sparkle
of great art with simple means of expression. A sparkle
of nature covered by mysterious veil of belief and
symbolics which has the meaning of awe to eternity,
good will and nature. This art was preserved and
transferred across the centuries for us. We have to bow
before it!
Today we
live in another world – we only have to continue the
life of this trade. Folk art has the right to life more
than ever. Through it young people adopt moral virtues.
Aesthetic taste can be cultivated by using ideas of the
intransient beauty of our cultural legacy. This is art
which will shine and shall beguile with a sip from
eternity anyone who has come in touch with it.
